Another Week in Paradise

 This week Elsie has been recovering from her sickness.  Monday she was really struggling so I broke down and took her to the doctor.  She somehow made it through the visit without coughing and after a second Covid test (negative again) the doctor pronounced she had a cold and sent me home without any real help for making it through the coughing filled nights.  When we left the doctor I asked Elsie how she had made it through the whole visit without coughing.  She said we had been holding it in.  I asked her why she was holding it in and she said "because I didn't want to get the doctor sick".  It was very thoughtful, despite not being quite what I would want at a doctor's appointment.  Anyway, she had to miss preschool all week, but has slowly returned to health.  Friday, she was feeling well enough that she ran some errands with me and even asked me to paint her nails.

Carrigan has had a busy week with Girls on the Run, sewing, and her last volleyball camp.  She also has a playdate, a girls' night and started working on her Science Fair project with her friend Kinley.  They are doing a project called "Die by Dye" where they are soaking roses in water dyed with various colors of dye to see which rose color dies first and which lives the longest.  She will be working on it for the next several weeks and then the Science Fair is at the end of May.

Merrick had a week full of practices and a tournament this weekend.  The big news from this weekend's tournament is that Merrick pitched the entirety of the second game.  That has never happened before.  Actually the other team's pitcher pitched the entire game too.  It was a true pitchers' duel.  I may be biased but I think Merrick was better, he was certainly more accurate.  He had one rougher inning where he let in 3 runs but his other 4 innings were pretty much flawless.  He had 12 strikeouts over the game.  Unfortunately, his team left their bats at home while the other pitcher was good, he wasn't as good as they made him look and they ended up losing 3-2.

It was another good week that flew by.  Everyone is feeling better now so I am hopeful for a good week ahead.

 

April Snow Brings May ?

 Whew! What a week this has been! As I looked back over pictures from this week I kept thinking "Wow! That was just this week?!?!"  I guess it has been a long one.

The rollercoaster of a week started Monday when we woke up to 2 plus inches of snow.  It started as a two hour delay for school but it soon turned into a snow day...IN APRIL!  How does that even happen?!?! Surprisingly the kids didn't really want to play in it, which I was ok with because I already put the snow clothes away in the attic, you know because it's April.  They still enjoyed the bonus day off, until they have to make it up in June.

On Thursday we started our Easter festivities with an Easter egg hunt with Elsie's preschool friends.  It was still cold but not a terrible day for a hunt.  At least the rain stayed away for the most part.

Friday morning, Elsie woke up not feeling well.  I feel like she has been sick for every holiday since Thanksgiving.  She has a nasty cough and runny nose.  It's not Covid, but she hasn't felt well regardless.

Despite not feeling well, we still tried to participate in Easter festivities.  Saturday we went to our church Easter egg hunt and to the city's Hop Into Spring event that had crafts and a scavenger hunt.

Today we started the day with a visit from the Easter Bunny.  That silly bunny hid our baskets way up on the beam shelf in the family room.  I guess he has some serious hops.

After baskets and breakfast we got ready for church and almost made it out the door when I decided Elsie was just not well enough to go.  Instead she and I watched church on zoom while the rest of the family went.

We had planned for the family to all come for dinner and so, despite Elsie not feeling well, everyone still came for dinner and an egg hunt.  I think the little kids where excited for the egg hunt, but I think the big kids enjoyed playing basketball more.

It was a pretty good, if not crazy long, week and good Easter.  Happy Easter to all!

Highlights

 Have you ever had the experience of being outside in the cold and rain for an extended period of time and then you just feel wiped out, even if you didn't do much of anything?  That's were I am right now so don't judge me it this blog is a a bit short and sweet. Also my thoughts are all over the place with lots of random things that happened this week rather than big things, but here we go nonetheless.

This week Elsie got her preschool pictures back.  The picture is cute, but I don't really think it looks like her.  Her class picture is pretty cute too with lots of classic preschool smiles.  It's been a fun year with our 11 girls and 1 boy.

The highlight of Carrigan's week was going to Wings and Waves with some friends for her friend, Makayla's, birthday.  For some reason she didn't feel brave enough to do most of the slides but she still loved the wave pool, whirlpool, and hot tub.  This week she also enjoyed playing on the school playground after school with those same friends and finishing her pillow at sewing class with most of those same friends.

Merrick's highlight was his tournament this weekend.  We played two games Saturday and two on Sunday.  Merrick pitched in 3 of the 4 games.  He pitched a total of 6 2/3 innings (about a 1/3 of all the innings played this weekend) and gave up a total of 2 runs.  In one of the games he pitched 31 pitches and 27 of them were strikes.  He has come such a long way from three summers ago when we were just trying to get to 50% strikes.

My highlight (or maybe my lowlight) was spending Friday spreading 20 bags of mulch in the front yard.  It was lots of work and apparently caused a head to toe allergic reaction, but it made a big difference and it looks so good out front.

Not sure what Jeremy's highlight was but come tomorrow it might be making it to work without running out of gas after we spent the weekend driving back and forth from Washington a million times.

Yay Sports Ball

 We have a friend who is very much not into sports and whenever he has to watch his kids play sports, he is often known to sarcastically say, "Yay sports ball!".  I, however, love to watch my kids play sports and luckily for me, I had plenty of opportunities to do so this week.  

This week Carrigan started two new sports in addition to the sewing class she has been taking.  She is doing "Girls on the Run" on Mondays and Fridays and is also doing a volleyball clinic on Fridays.  This makes for a tired and busy girl most days, but she is enjoying the chance to try something new.  I was a little bit worried about her playing volleyball because she has usually shied away from sports when she could get hurt playing them, and I know that volleyball can sometimes be painful.  When I picked her up from the first clinic I asked her if she had fun and she gave an enthusiastic "yes".  I then asked her if it hurt and she said, "oh heck yeah".  Hopefully she continues to enjoy it despite the hurt arms.

Merrick is in full swing baseball mode now.  He had two practices and a game this week.  His game was against Lakeridge under the lights.  He played first base in the game for innings 1-4 and then pitched in innings 5 and 6 (they only play 6 innings).  He went out to pitch in the bottom of the 5th with the game tied 5-5.  He pitched a total of 10 pitches that inning, 1 ball and 9 strikes to end the inning.  In the top of the 6th he hit a double to bring in two runs and when he went back to the mound in the bottom of the 6th they led 7-5.  The bottom of the sixth inning was a struggle for him, not because of his pitching but mostly because of the calls he was getting.  He was tending to pitch high and outside in the zone but the ump would only call inside strikes.  He had several batters walk on very questionable calls.  He got one strikeout, but walked the bases loaded.  After another questionable called he walked in a batter.  The score was 7-6 with one out.  The next batter up he struck out.  Two outs now.  The last batter came up and he went to work.  He struck him out to win the game with bases loaded.  Oh man!  It was intense!  I was unbelievably proud of him though.  He kept his cool in a high pressure situation much better than I would have.

So that was the week.  Full of sports ball and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way!